War and gender

Introduction

The politics of war and peace have historically been perceived along gender lines where men are mandated to participate in a war and make peace as soldiers or guerillas or peacemakers and nation builders (Jansen, 2006). Such an approach to war portrays men as the perpetrators of atrocities, while women are portrayed as victims and are always assumed to have a strong desire for peace (Jansen, 2006). Goldstein (2001) defines war as dangerous intergroup violence. On the other hand, Goldstein (2001) argues that “gender” generally entails masculine and feminine roles and bodies alike, in all their aspects. The purpose of this paper is to explain Patricia Collins and Dorothy Smith’s approaches to gender. Thereafter, the two theories will be applied in the historical context of gender and war.

Collins and Smith’s approaches to gender

Collins uses the term matrix of domination to emphasize that the position a person holds in society is comprised of several contiguous standpoints instead of just one essentialist perspective (Collins, 2000). For example, women perform many different roles in the course of their life, conditioned on the dominant structures under which they operate. On the other hand, Smith is popularly known as one of the proponents of standpoint theory. She uses the concept of standpoint to emphasize that what one knows is affected by where one stands in society (Feminist and Gender Theories, n.d). For example, women working in a male-dominated profession accept male language and behaviour, even if it is at the expense of women.

Explaining the theorist’s approach

The two theorists have a common approach to gender, where the entire concept is skewed towards the dominating group. This concurs to Jansen’s (2006) argument that men are the ones making decisions during the time of war while women are considered the victims of war with a strong desire for peace without direct involvement. Hoy (1994) proposed three characteristics defining a male-dominated society. These include the presence of violence by men against women (authoritarian aggression), customs of female submission to men (authoritarian submission), and a predominance of men in political spheres (hierarchical social structure). The three characteristics give a better definition of Collins and Smith’s approach to gender, which portrays man as the dominating group in society.

The historical context of gender and war

Gender inequality is magnified in situations of war, and women are disproportionately disadvantaged in terms of personal safety, access to resources, and human rights (Jansen, 2006). Two articles will be used to explain the historical context of gender and war. The purpose of the first article was to examine gender expectations and roles during and after World War One (Grayzel, 2014 a). Although women live with such daily reminders of war, states and agents of civil society spread propaganda trying to portray women as those who were not near war zones with the front lines (Grayzel, 2014 a). Moreover, governments used rationed the food women could acquire and eat. Similarly, the government made all efforts to restrict women from accessing or sharing any information related to war (Grayzel, 2014 a).

The purpose of the second article was to examine the domestic work women played during the war (Grayzel, 2014 b). From the earliest days of the conflict, the chores at home, such as sewing and knitting, took on a military cast as girls and women created handmade comforts for soldiers (Grayzel, 2014 b). Furthermore, women were required to surrender their husbands and sons to join the military. Women were also made to accept rationing by the Allied blockade of the Central Powers, thus going without taking specific foodstuffs (Grayzel, 2014 b). For this reason, the Austrian, German, Russian, French, and British women adapted to the censorship life imposed on them limiting what they could provide for their families as well as themselves On the same note; the German women went to the extent of giving their long hair to the war effort (Grayzel, 2014 b).

Description of the primary sources used and their historical significance

From the articles, it was evident that states and agents of civil society contributed immensely towards male domination. The articles explained the history of male dominance in war by revealing how the waging of the war had higher expectations on the able-bodied men in the prime of life to serve in the military. Unfortunately, this happened at the expense of undermining women who were made to contribute to the war effort in many ways, on top of maintaining their domestic roles. Therefore, the two articles contributed to the historical explanation and context of gender and war.

Analysis of the articles based on Collins and Smith’s theory

Both articles revealed how states and agents of civil society contributed to the male dominance in war with women assigned domestic roles. The two articles supported Collin’s three levels of how women experienced resist oppression from the government. The first is the level of personal biography; second, the group or community level of the cultural context created by race, class, and gender; third, the systemic level of social institutions (Collins, 2000). Assigning women the domestic tasks while men allowed to participate in the war was an example of a group or community level of the cultural context created by race, class, and gender. Restricting the kind of information women access and share supports the term “standpoint,” which reflects Smith’s dual rational and nonrational approach to action and individual and collective approach to order (Feminist and Gender Theories, n.d). In conclusion, both articles explained the historical context of gender and war based on Collins and Smith’s approaches to gender.

References

Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (Second Edition). New York, London: Routledge

Feminist and Gender Theories. (n.d). Retrieved from https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/41961_14.pdf

Goldstein, J. S. (2001). War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. Doi:10.5860/choice.39-5252

Grayzel, S. (2014 a). Changing lives: Gender expectations and roles during and after World War One. Retrieved from https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/changing-lives-gender-expectations

Grayzel, S. (2014 b). Women at home in a world at war. Retrieved from https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/women-at-home

Hoy, A. R. (1994). The relationship between male dominance and militarism: Quantitative tests of several theories. World Cultures, 8(2), 40-57. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8d16/2ccf2345f8ccb47ccf9e6ccbc72f89a4c4f1.pdf

Jansen, G. G. (2006). Gender and War: The effects of armed conflict on women’s health and mental health. Journal of Women and Social Work, 21(2), 134-145. doi.org/10.1177/0886109905285760